All That is New Again
by E.V.A.Graebel
Summary: Sequel to What Heroes are Made Of. Can Nya leave behind Leoben's memory? Can a resurrected Leoben survive among the Cylons? Completed.
1. Chapter 1

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Super big thanks to Evilclone, Raina, Airam4U, Ana Sedai, Katholz, Darkfinder, Eklektik, Artemis1000, and everyone else who read "What Heroes are Made Of" I really appreciate all the interest and feedback. Your input really gave me the umph to dive back into this.

I'll try to update as quickly as possible….allowing time for the season finale to air. :) I'm going to weave the story in through it since it will allow me to bring Leoben back without undue contortions to my brain. I could've kissed RM when I realized where he was taking this. Good Cylons, bad Cylons. The possibilities are endless. :)

Warning: some angst, fluff, betrayals, and religious questioning to come. Enjoy!

* * *

**The Cylons were created by Man  
They evolved  
They rebelled  
There are many copies  
And they have a plan**

**47,850 survivors  
In search of a home  
Called Earth**

* * *

**Heal me**

**----- **

A gasp.

Painful cold air reaching right inside his lungs and ripping the will to breathe straight out of him.

"Breathe." Someone whispers in comfort.

"Nya?" Saying her name shocks him into taking another breath and then a third. "Nya!"

Leoben thrashes inside of the birthing tank as gentle hands hold him down. The download is complete but the memories, the memories are crashing inside of him as he relives it all again. '_You're dying_.' – '_Just this once_.' - the airlock – _her_ – the Colonial refugees – archery on Sagittaron – _Nya wounded_ – choices – and a voice that only two men could hear.

The words rip out of his throat. "Wait for me!"

His eyes snap open and focus on the lights all around him. He can't help but twitch as he sees the copies waiting all around him. Three identical Leobens stare down at him with a black man that he doesn't recognize and another unidentifiable male Cylon. Leoben struggles to remember their names but he seems to have lost some things in the download. He hasn't lost the fear of being found out and clamps his mouth shut tightly before he can cry out again as he convulses with pain. They wait patiently for him. The pain will subside – it always does.

"Nya?" One of the other Leobens asks. "The pilot on board the Journey?"

"Yes." He says hoarsely. "We were shot."

The black man reaches over him and undoes the straps on his wrists. "What took you so long? You were supposed to download over six months ago."

"There were complications." The copy helps him sit up as the viscous birthing fluid drains slowly off his chest and back into the vat.

"Complications." Leoben is still having difficulty hearing his voice echoed back at him. This is from the copy furthest from him, dressed in a scarlet shirt so bright that it burns at Leoben's eyes.

"We continue to have more and more of these…complications."

-----

One month later….

Tom Zarek isn't exactly hurrying as he searches the lower decks of the Astral Queen, but there is something visceral about the bowels of the ship that gives him the chills. Too much machinery in too close. He doesn't trust it like he used to.

He jumps as something crashes in the space ahead of him. Sparks shoot out of an open vent and he breaks into a run.

"What are you doing!"

A smoke-covered pilot-turned-engineer emerges from the crawlspace and pats the last bit of fire off of her coveralls. Her hair is twisted back in a ponytail and the smudges of ash on her cheeks highlight the grey of her eyes.

Nya Reece looks much different from the first time Tom met her, puking her guts out in the Galactica's head. They share scars from that first day and a sense of sadness that both of them have struggled to overcome. The death of Leoben Conoy, _their_ Leoben Conoy, resonated deeply within them. For Tom it was a reminder of all the terrible things he had done and for Nya it was the horrible truth of loving a monster. The scars inside are much wider than those they wear on their skin.

"Is my ship on fire?" He asks.

"Fire? Frak!" Nya lunges back inside and he can hear the nozzle of a flame retardant canister being cracked open.

He helps pull her back out as the cloud of smoke thickens and then subsides. They collapse on the floor and he ignores the smudges that collect on his suit. She glances over at him and starts to giggle, moments later neither of them can hold it in, and laugh until Tom is clutching his stomach and trying unsuccessfully to give her a stern look.

"Why are we laughing?" He finally asks.

"Your ship is a piece of crap." Nya snorts as she tries to control herself.

"It's the best I could manage." This sends them off into another paroxysm of laughter. They both know how Tom ended up being Commander of a prison ship crewed by convicts.

She leans against him and breathes deeply to hold off any more laughter. "Explain to me again why I'm spending my days off doing maintenance on the Queen."

"Because I'm a fabulous host."

Nya smiles but Tom sees the sudden wash of sadness fill her eyes. He reaches out to touch her hand, resting on the smooth warmth of her skin, and knows that he hates Leoben more today than any other day. Every time that Nya is set to move on, the memory of the past holds her down.

"And because I need you here." It's said a little more forcefully than he meant to say it. He softens his tone. "As a friend."

"How did your meeting go?"

"Adama."

She doesn't need him to elaborate on that. The Journey was late to the Fleet, but she's heard more than she ever needed to know about what transpired in their absence. Zarek's battles with Adama and Roslin are nigh legendary, but Nya is one of the few who also knows the truth of Kobol.

In the days following Leoben's death he stayed with her to comfort her. And in those days, Tom discovered a confidante in Nya, like the one he'd lost when Meier died. She trusted him and he her, despite where she'd lent her services.

"That's not why I'm down here."

"What?"

"Come with me."

He leads her back through the belly of the Astral Queen to one of the aft cargo compartments.

"If you've broken something else on this ship, I don't want to know." Nya laughs as they step around a pile of equipment in the corridor. "Galactica doesn't give me enough leave to rebuild this heap."

"Nothing else is broken." Tom assures her. "At least that I know of."

"Then what is going on?" Nya protests lightly as he makes to cover her eyes.

"Worried?" He teases lightly. "You're a Fleet Raptor pilot now. Rough, tough….what's the rest of the saying?"

"You're saying it wrong. It's 'Raptor recon -- penetrates deeper, stays longer and carries a bigger load.' Come on, I didn't make it up."

"Welcome to life in the military." Zarek steers her around the last obstacle and towards the door. He opens it with one hand and lets her step inside. "But maybe this will make up for it, Archer."

Nya Reece frowns slightly at the use of her call sign. It reminds her that her life has changed so much that's its nearly unrecognizable.

She couldn't stay on the Journey after what happened. The crew's eyes followed her everywhere and she could still sense Leoben in every hallway and the remnants of his handiwork. There was nothing else she could do but leave. Captain Adama had offered her the chance to move to Galactica but in the heat of battle she couldn't pull the trigger. Couldn't look out her cockpit window and wonder if Leoben was the Cylon in the fighter across from her. They'd yanked her from the Vipers and sent her to a Raptor, but there were times when she wondered what exactly she was doing fighting in a war that she didn't want to fight.

Tom wasn't the only person who seemed to understand. She'd met Helo and the Chief and the others who'd loved Sharon Valerii, but they didn't really connect with her - for them, Sharon was still alive, even if it was a copy.

Someone from Sagittaron could understand. Someone who didn't look askance at her whispered prayers or misunderstand what they meant to her. Breathing was necessary for life. And to Nya, so was her culture, even if it was gone.

"What?" But the question dies in her throat as bittersweet emotions swamp her and threaten to spill forth. "Tom?"

He guides her further into the room as her feet fail to guide her within the sanctuary. "I shot an arrow into the air/ It fell to earth I know not where/ I breathed a song into the air/ It fell to earth I know not where."

She finishes it for him, a childhood poem from home, as she looks in awe upon what he's built for her. "Long afterward in an oak/ I found the arrow still unbroke/ And the song from beginning to end/ I found again in the heart of my friend."

One act done in friendship begins to heal the wound inside of her. Nya lets the memory of Leoben slip away as she steps onto the archery range and reaches for a bow.

-----

* * *

The archery poem I found was uncredited.

Chapter 2 preview. When Galactica discovers the Pegasus, Nya gains access to something that might explain just what Leoben meant by 'the serpent in the garden'.


	2. Chapter 2

So sorry.:( I had to move, well the move was optional but it took up a ton of my time and delayed the second chapter. Baaad fanfic writer. I will accept my twenty lashings.

* * *

**The Reeducation of Nya Reece – Part 1**

Nya blinks and the explosion flares, so bright, it burns the tears from her eyes.

-----

"_Hail, children of Zeus! Tell of the everlasting gods. Tell how, in the beginning, gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were born of them_…"

"You're quiet today."

Leoben slides the book shut but the copy of D'anna Bries has already seen the inside of it. One eyebrow quirks as she slides in across from him and waits for an explanation.

He is sitting alone at one of the café tables, waiting and hoping to catch a glimpse of Caprica Six and Sharon Valerii. So far the women haven't shown up and Leoben desperately needs them to, but he can't tell that to her, he can't trust this backstabbing Cylon model anymore than he could trust the humans to do the right thing on Journey. As he is now, a machine gone native, he doesn't have anyone except himself.

"I was trying to understand."

"Understand?" She asks in that harsh Virgon accent.

"Why they believe in the old stories." He answers smoothly, aware of how easily the lies come to him, and wondering which part of his ancestry it hails from. "You must study your enemy to know their weaknesses. You must know how to exploit their beliefs."

"An interesting theory."

"One I hope to test and see if it bears fruit." But something in his voice betrays him slightly and D'anna stares at him with her eyes crinkled sharply.

"Test personally?" She asks.

"If God permits." Leoben answers sharply.

"Of course," she looks away as though gauging something, his nervousness perhaps. "We all await God's approval of our actions and our lives."

Leoben doesn't answer. He waits and eventually D'anna tires of him and excuses herself. When she is gone he unclenches his fingers from the book. Each tip has bent deep grooves into the leather cover and will not unmark despite his every effort.

"Zeus, hear my prayer." Says the voice of a creature no longer Cylon and yet not human either. "Know my piety and keep me safe long enough to see her again."

His hand drops and he tucks the book deep into his jacket pocket. Then, his eyes turn skyward.

Toward the gods.

Toward her.

-----

There is a sharp rap at the airlock of the Astral Queen. Tom and his second, Davis, acknowledge the rap and spin the hatch to equalize both sides. He isn't anxious, but its been over two weeks since Nya last left. He hates to realize how attached he has become to her and every time he feels the loss he is reminded that she is a political weakness. There is no easy solution.

She is wearing the dark silver Fleet uniform but her eyes crinkle sharply when she sees him.

He embraces her. "How long can you stay?"

The question makes her freeze and they disengage carefully. Her face is now dreadfully serious with concern.

"Nya?"

"I've been assigned to the Pegasus."

"The Pegasus?" Tom rolls the thought over in his mind. "Why?"

"Commander Cain has ultimate authority over the Fleet." Nya grips his arm as they walk from the flight deck. "She is changing the way things work around here."

"But Adama and Roslin won't allow that."

Nya shakes her head almost sorrowfully. "From the way Apollo explained it, they don't have any choice. Military protocol is uncompromising."

"Why you?"

She looks away. Nya won't ever admit to him what she has heard about the Pegasus or the history that the ship carries with her. For all that they have experienced and overcome, there is still some part of Nya that withholds herself from loving another man. She does love Tom; as friends do, as compatriots do, as family does, but she does not yet love him the way that she loved Leoben. And part of her doesn't want him to worry. There are no guarantees about what the Pegasus might hold for her, good or evil.

"Normal personnel transfer." She answers finally. "I guess we'll be seeing a lot of crew move between ships to integrate the Fleet."

"I see."

"Come on." She teases him lightly. "I thought you'd be happy that someone besides Adama was in command."

"We'll see." Tom halts as he sees where Nya has brought him. "Why are we here?"

"It might be awhile." Nya releases her hold on him and starts to gather up the bows laying along the floor. "You could use the space for…"

"Stop."

She looks up at him startled.

"It will wait for you."

She can't answer to that statement, can't find the words inside of her racing heart.

-----

"T-minus fifteen seconds. Bravo team assume position."

Nya pivots the VIPER towards the wingman position.

"On my mark, begin strafing run."

-----

"You still come here often."

"Yes." Leoben offers no other explanation as his copy comes to stand along side of him. He decides to call this one Blue in his mind for the mismatched blue trousers and shirt that his doppelganger is wearing.

They stand in the darkness that surrounds the birthing chamber looking down at the innocuous vat that sees them reborn. This tank is empty, awaiting a new blank body and the death of the Cylon that will fill it.

Blue leaves his side and stalks around the edge of the tank so that the two men can look directly at each other. "Do you ever wonder why you came here? And not somewhere else?"

"What do you mean?" Leoben doesn't understand.

"We know where the Fleet is….roughly." Blue grins. "You could have downloaded out there. Instead we brought you here."

Leoben weighs his options and goes for the honest answer, the one that rings truest. "I was important for some reason."

"You were an anomaly."

This makes sense. If Leoben had destroyed the crew of the Journey he would never have come to anyone's attention. No one would have noticed him amoung all the other resurrections. But he had done something special and attention-worthy. He had not died when he was supposed to.

"D'anna thinks I went native."

"Did you?"

"The humans," he sneers. "Stopped me from destroying the ship. I had no choice but to blend in. God commands but he does not waste lives unnecessarily. I was biding my time until I had the chance again."

"So bringing you all the way back to Caprica wasn't necessary? The use of power to boost your consciousness through four relay stations was wasted?"

Leoben shrugs. "I am one of the many."

"And the woman you spoke of? Nya?" You don't find yourself with any latent feelings towards her?"

Leoben shakes his head, not trusting his voice to sustain the lie. "We don't leave a single one of them alive. That is God's will. Not one. Not the babies in their mothers' wombs – not even they must live. The whole people must be wiped out of existence , and none be left to think of them and shed a tear."

"Ah…scripture." Blue sounds elated that Leoben can quote it to him so well. "God's word is what sustains us and keeps us going. We will triumph."

"Of course. You'd doubt God's word?" Leoben turns the tables back on his copy who looks at him with veiled anger.

"Never."

"Nor I." But he looks back at the birthing chamber and wishes that he'd been given a choice of which race to belong to. Lately he believes that the Cylons have just deluded themselves with dreams of righteousness and were committing the same atrocities that they blamed the humans for. Yet this was where it all began for them – here – machines made by other machines.

"You miss her." Blue tries one last time to trip up Leoben.

"No." But even as Leoben says the lie he promises to himself that no matter what happens…he will never betray Nya again.

-----

Nya collapses to the deck, her stomach screaming in pain but unbruised as she spits the first gobbet of blood onto the metal flooring. Every part of her aches, even the spots that they haven't hit.

"What have we here?" Says a new voice but she can't even find the strength to find out who this new tormentor might be. "Another frakking Cylon lover?"

"Nah, Lt. This one refuses to fly a VIPER."

"Is she qualified?"

"Moral…" The first voice hesitates as he pulls her octagon shaped personnel file toward him. "Moral objections that restrict her from fragging toasters."

Nya gulps as another blow hits her kidneys and smashes her into the floor. A hand threads itself through her hair and yanks her head back so hard that she sees stars. A leering face enters her shaky field of vision and spits full force into her eyes. She blinks fiercely to clear it as he takes a broad thumb and rubs it into her sensitive corneas.

"There are no 'moral objections' on the Pegasus. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." She answers softly.

"No, I don't think you do." He shoves her head away from him and reaches for the towel to wrap around his knuckles. "Drake, you and Heaverly are going to help me with this one. I think she's lying. And I think she'll need a bit more reeducation before she understands how things really work on Pegasus.

"Ready, boys?"

Nya bites her lip as the blows descend. She can't speak and the words to the prayers she holds so dear flit in and out of her mind as the pain overwhelms everything else.

* * *

To be continued…..

The book quote Leoben was reading is from Michael Grant's "Myths of the Greeks and Romans" and is paraphrased from Hesiod's "Theogeny". Leoben's quote on genocide is from "The Iliad" by Homer.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for all the reviews. I figured everyone would lose interest with the delay. Enjoy!

* * *

**The Reeducation of Nya Reece – Part 2**

**-----**

"You can see them." Shouts Bravo Four across the comm. "Look at them, there's thousands of them in there!"

"Bravo team mark!"

The VIPERs swoop down on the Resurrection Ship.

-----

"Forgive me." She whispers.

"What did you say?" Heaverly bends over her. An open flame cradled between his hands and Nya's personal bag behind him on the floor.

"Nothing." She looks up at him slowly. She cannot reveal what is hidden inside the fabric lining of the bag, but neither can she let them go without a fight. She slams her shoulder into his abdomen, flames lick against her cheek as they go down in a crumpled mass of flesh. Pegasus' officers are dragging her away from him as she rolls across the flame and extinguishes it.

"Hold her down!" Drake shouts.

Something strikes the back of Nya's head and she whimpers as the darkness swings in deeply around her. As her eyes start to close she sees Baltar in the corridor but there is not enough time to do anything but glare as the pain begins again.

Gauis Baltar is bringing the tray of food down from the galley himself, not trusting the Pegasus crew to give untainted food to the cylon model that calls herself Gina. He glances toward the side room as he hears the shouting. The woman on the floor looks familiar as her attackers ready themselves to vent their real anger on her prone body.

"Lt. Reece?" He asks himself softly.

"_Savages._" Six's voice is so mundane as they watch the beating.

"Should I stop this?"

"_And lose your credibility with Cain?_" Her tone of voice tells him exactly what she thinks of that idea. _"You have a job to do. God chose you to do certain things that have been foretold. This thing, is not your problem. You must save Her._"

"And Reece?"

"_She should have died with Leoben._"

"They're torturing her." Some brief remnant of a moral conscience rears back its head.

Six shrugs nonchalantly and turns his face with one manicured hand. He glances up at her in adoration and she smiles carefully into that gaze. "_She's only human._"

"Ah yes." He answers to the thin air that is all around him. "You can justify whatever you want as long as it's done to a human." Without waiting for her response he heads back into the brig that contains another battered and bruised woman.

-----

"Are you sure this is the place?"

"Yes."

Leoben stares around in awe. He hadn't really expected to be allowed to come here. It is Athena's shrine on Kobol, the ground still marked with faded footsteps and the blood of the fallen.

"They took the arrow of Athena with them."

"That's okay." He steps inside and stares in awe at the statues all around him. The sense of history weighs deeply upon him and he feels, not for the first time, that his new faith is grounded in truth. Blue follows him but stares about with the unseeing eyes of a tourist who has forgotten his history.

"What do you think you can learn here?" Blue asks. "Moldy statues and dust."

"There is something more." Leoben closes his eyes. Deep within his jacket pocket is the unique prophecy that he found on Caprica,that isnearly as important as the scrolls of Pythia, at least to him. They have told him to come here to this spot and to believe.

"I don't get it. We know where they are."

"But we don't really know them."

"Sure we do." Blue says as he sits on the broken altar of a god, ignoring the debris that falls from his presence and scatters even further on the floor. "We know how to use them, to manipulate them, to kill them. What more do we need?"

"For a Three you have such limited vision." Leoben inhales the rank smell of old dust and detects something faintly beneath it, something that rings with the promise of things still unseen and waiting. "We may be superior in all those aspects, but we don't know how they love."

"Love is irrelevant."

"No, there are things we lack. Things we cannot gain on our own."

"The Cylon race is pure and just. We do none of the things that humanity is plagued with. No greed, no hatred, no suffering."

"Exactly." Leoben pulls the small black box from beneath his jacket from where it nestled close to the scroll. There are no complicated steps he needs to take, just a single button to push. He reaches for Blue and slides the box against his copy's skin. Blue's eyes widen and the two men struggle for a moment but it is too late.

The life drains from his eyes.

Leoben lets his body hit the floor even as the box warms in his palm before it cools. "Without injustices, justice means nothing. Without suffering, there would be no value in love. They are the ones who are complete. We are just copies."

He crushes the box underneath his feet and turns again to the gods around him. "Purity of intention is worth as much as a key. Search my soul, Orai guardians of heaven, if I am found wanting then hide the path from me – but if my love is true, show me the way to salvation. Show me how to become human."

The tomb flickers and gives way to grass and a starless sky.

-----

"May sorrow show me the way to compassion. May I realize grace in the midst of suffering..."

"What the frak is she mumbling about?"

"...may I love, knowing that I cannot change death." Nya gazes up with eyes black with despair and her voice grows in volume so that they can hear it. "I'll fly your frakking VIPER. I'll fly her, and I'll kill Cylons with her. That is what you want. Isn't it?"

"About frakking time." Heaverly gripes and pushes the small burning bag away from him. "Thought we were going to have to beat youall night."

-----

"Nya?" Captain Adama knocks on the door to the showers before he enters.

She is curled underneath the water, a mass of pain despite the lack of physical scarring. Their techniques were not as flawless as Lt. Thorn would have others believe. Blood streaks her nose and cheek from internal bruising.

She responds groggily as he wraps a towel around her shaking frame and helps her out of the showers.

"Who did this?" He demands angrily.

She only shakes her head. "You didn't include all of my history."

"What?" Her answer confuses him.

"Moral objections." Her voice trails away. "Not the truth. Just that I had a moral objection."

"That was all that mattered." Apollo examines her and the anger in his eyes grows as he sees the tenderness of her flesh. "Who did this, Archer?"

"I'm to fly your VIPER." Her grey eyes are deeper than charcoal with sadness. "Against the Resurrection ship." He starts to ask again who had ordered the beating when she grabs his hand fiercely, intently. "It would have been worse if they'd known the truth."

"About Leoben."

She nods, it was never a question.

"Maybe we can contact my father. Get you transferred back to Galactica."

"No."

"This is not the way the military works. We're not brutes who punish people like this. This is not the law that I've served under for the last seven years. You have to believe that."

She shrugs and winces suddenly with the pain of it. "I don't care."

"You have to care. You know Galactica, this is not how we operate."

"We're part of a bigger Fleet now."

Lee almost reaches out for her. He's never dealt well with his female pilots, and now that he'd been officially stripped of CAG status, he doesn't have the real authority to change anything either. He can only be here as a friend, as even his status as his father's son has lost any weight it might have had. Here he is a hostage against his father's good will.

But also this war has changed the man that Lee Adama was. Aged him, altered his viewpoint, and saddened him. Especially this, another beaten pilot in front of him while two of his closest friends sat in the brig accused of murder. After Lt. Thorn had finished with Nya he'd gone after Sharon, his need for torture unfulfilled. They were tearing themselves apart even as the Cylons got closer and closer.

"Let's get you to the Doc."

She doesn't argue as he helps her dress and half-carries her through the hall to the medbay. Something has broken inside of her that Lee doesn't understand or really know how to fix.

Baltar sees their slow progress through the halls but doesn't offer to help. He is startled as Nya looks up at him with pure hatred in her eyes. But Lee doesn't stop and they pass by the Vice President.

"Hang on, Nya. Just hang on." He tells her but her eyes are blank and glassy with the memory of what Leoben told her before he died. About the serpent.

-----

"You've come to my favorite part of the tour." Says the tour guide as she steps up onto the final stair and gestures to the omphalos, the naval stone of the temple. "From what the scientists can tell, this is one of the oldest temple stones in the Colonies. We believe that it was brought here from Kobol, and perhaps from someplace older than that. It is made of a stone we cannot identify. Perhaps it was given to our ancestors by the Gods themselves."

"Come on." Leoben pulls at Nya's arm. "Enough of this. Let's explore ourselves."

They break away from the group and scramble across the weathered temple stones that lead in two directions from the temple. Here on a low plateau Nya halts as she sees the heavy pillar statue with a snake curling up around the base of a cracked and fragmented stone leg.

"Ophicus." She says in awe. "I've never been here before."

"The serpent bearer." Leoben looks up as well. "And the healer."

"Oh!" She laughs in glee as they climb over broken statue pieces to the other side of the statue. Here and there, creeping vines have climbed skyward like tiny flowering serpents reaching forever upward. "He does know some history."

"History. Mythology." He chides as she trips and falls into his waiting arms. "I've always known it, I just don't understand why you believed."

"Faith is what some answer but not me."

"What do you answer then? What do you see when you look at the decrepit old bones that our ancestors worshipped? Is there real life in them, or are they are empty as the stone they're made of?"

Nya runs one hand along a ridge of serpent coil. Even where Opichus has lost much definition to the test of time, here she can feel the tiny ripples of scales where they were etched by an ancient stonemason. A thrill runs down her spine at the age of this statue and what he means on the oldest of the Colonies.

"I see hope."

"Hope?" Leoben asks. "They entail the past not the future."

"Like my mother taught me, you always honor your elders for they are the basis of your exsistence. And because I do see the future in the Gods. Someday we will look for their aid and those who've lost faith will be found wanting. I think believing in them gives us hope. And hope leads us toward the truth."

"I hope something different." He grins as he wraps his arms around her waist and draws her toward him even as the sun begins to set and darken. "Isn't there a fertility shrine around here somewhere?"

"And why would we need that?"

"I just thought they might have some interesting ideas."

She shoves him away laughing as they chase each other through the stones and back toward the tour group. The broken statue behind them watching with empty eyes as the snake coils tightly around his feet and up around his staff, its eyes full of truths and mysteries.

* * *

Whew! Part II is done and Part III will be up ASAP. I hope everybody can bear with me as I try to bring together the mythology with what is going on and some revelations about Zarek.

And keep you all wondering what exactly Leoben is doing. :)

Leoben's talk about "Injustice/justice" is taken from Heraclitus but similar things have been said by Asian philosophers as well as others. Nya's prayer is a modification of a Buddhist prayer. Ophicus is also known as Asclepius, the healer.

P.S. I couldn't remember if Leoben's number was revealed so I took liberty there.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Reeducation of Nya Reece – Part III (revised)  
**

**

* * *

**

**For those who have read this before. It is just the end that has changed. Chapter 5 to follow this weekend.**

* * *

---- 

"As you walk in darkness, you are not alone, you will never be alone."

"Raider on your six!"

Nya jerks her head around but can't see anything except for the flashes of light on her retinas. "I don't see it!"

"Archer, hard tail it! Hard tail it –NOW!"

She slams her palm down on the throttle and the VIPER spins backwards over its rear thrusters. Between the spots in her vision she sees the Cylon fighter and targets it instantly. Gunfire flashes between the ships and for a moment, she wishes that one would take her as well, now that there is nothing to live for. But her shots are faster and the Cylon ship blows into tiny pieces of debris that scatter across the hull of her ship.

Like rain falling, the soft patter lulls her and her eyes close. A stray shot hits her VIPER and spins it uncontrollably as warning lights and alarms scream their multiple warnings. Starbuck is shouting across the comm. again but Nya doesn't care, her eyes are closed, and she holds them that way.

"I loved you…" She whispers to the darkness and sees the explosion happen again, and again, and again.

----

One day before the attack…

Tom Zarek gazes around him at the sleek efficiency of the Battlestar Pegasus. This ship is nothing like the decrepit old hull that Adama calls his pride and joy. This is a warship, that much Tom can see from her smooth lines and angry detailing.

"Commander Cain," he smiles as he recognizes the martial woman approaching him with one hand extended in welcome. "Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted." Her handshake is what he expected, nearly crushing. "Welcome to the Pegasus."

"I must confess some curiousity." He says as he follows her off the shuttle deck. "I've heard that you're fond of stone-walling President Roslin, so your invitation was unexpected."

"Straightforward." Cain nods. "I'd heard that about you."

"We can play the politician's game but I figured that was a waste of your time."

"Good instincts."

They continue down the hallway as the crew turn to watch them and glance away just as quickly. The difference in attitude crawls at Tom's spine. He'd heard the rumors, they all had, but he hadn't imagined that the truth would be so palpably obvious just from walking down a corridor. Bad things had happened here, and would continue to happen, and it all emanated from this woman.

"And?"

"And," she ushers him into an austere conference room. "I'm interested in brokering a deal."

"A deal?" He wonders how much weight he should give to the warning sirens going off in his head.

"Yes. I need someone I can work with in control of the civilian Fleet. Someone who isn't going to be bothering me every step of the way."

"I don't think I understand."

Cain snorts and gives him a look that makes it very clear she thinks his protest is ridiculous. "You'll have complete independence within the framework I give you. You give me what I want from the Fleet and I won't interfere in how you run it."

"You're offering me the Presidency?" He has to hear her say it because he doesn't quite believe it himself.

"Yes." She pours him a glass of whiskey and Tom takes it just to gain himself a moment to compose his thoughts.

"The Presidency." It's what he wants. It wasn't always, he had believed in freedom and independence once, but now in this new world, it's power. And Cain is offering to wrap it up and hand it to him free of charge. "I'd exchange a 888 for a despot."

"Call it whatever you want." Her voice is almost brittle. "The offer stands."

"And any assurances that I'd ask for?"

"Not a part of our deal." She drains her own glass and pours another. "You keep me happy and I'll maintain the civilian Fleet. If not…"

That promise lingers in the air between them.

"I'd like a day to think about it."

"A day." She laughs and it makes Tom remember what tomorrow is; the attack on the Resurrection Ship.

But he decides to hold to the timeline. There is something uneasy about this sudden offer and he tries to dispel the lingering worry that she's planning something against Adama and Roslin. Then, in a fit of pique, he tries to tell himself that he doesn't care. Dead by Cylons, by chance, or by this mad woman's hand will all give him the same thing – power.

"One day, and you'll have your decision."

-----

Nya hurries through the Pegasus corridors furtively as though every eye that sees her might glean the truth of her journey. Any part of it might send her back to the brig and their idea of reeducation.

"Hsst." Comes a voice and she turns instinctively towards it.

The small olive-skinned man stares at her as though he hasn't decided whether or not to trust her. He's wearing the uniform of a ship's cook even as Nya is dressed as a Fleet pilot yet there is something else more binding than uniforms that ties them together.

"Hail Zeus and Hera. Hail Orai, guardians of the gates of heaven and hail the Fates who decide when we shall walk between them."

He breathes a sigh of relief and pulls her into the shadows that contain him. "Praise, Apollo. I wasn't sure about you until that."

"Most Sagittarons won't even admit they're religious anymore." She answers softly.

He nods. "I'm Zeke. And no, they won't. You've seen what happens to people who don't follow Cain's orders. We're both courting death by meeting."

"But you know why I've come."

Silence descends between them as he reaches into his coveralls and pulls out a tiny half-damaged scroll. The parchment crackles as he unrolls it and she almost gasps as she sees the tiny watermark across the top, the reason she's come to this man.

"The serpent." She whispers.

Zeke nods. "The serpent. I couldn't save much from home. This and a few other things. The rest are gone now. Destroyed by Cylons like they'd never existed."

"Things aren't gone as long as we remember them."

A warmth embues his face and wipes away the years and sorrows laid upon it. "Spoken like a daughter of the Gods. Were you bound for the priesthood?"

"No, it was always the stars for me." She reaches out and touches the scroll with a reverent finger. "But this, this explains so much."

"Why are you interested?" Zeke asks gently. "With everything going on, what does this have to do with life?"

"Something someone told me once."

"Do you mind if I ask what?"

A sudden noise startles the both of them and they draw further into the shadows of the hall. They wait, each holding their breath, as a pair of crewmen turn the corner and walk past them without seeing.

"Thank you." She leans in and kisses him on one weathered cheek. "May the Gods and the Lords of Kobol bless you, Priest of Apollo, for what you've done."

"What have I done?" Zeke quests. "What are you going to do?"

-----

The VIPER spins and the force of it forces Nya to reopen her eyes. She grabs for the throttle and rides the spin around and manages to steady the fighter. Alarms continue to give their clarion cry for attention and she shuts them off.

"Archer?" Comes Starbuck's query. "You alive in there?"

"I'm here, Starbuck." The VIPER bucks at her commands but flies in a limping manner back toward the battle.

"We're just mopping up." Comes the gleeful voice. "Get your bird back to Pegasus. Mission accomplished."

"Mission accomplished." Nya echoes without any joy. "Wilco." Her VIPER turns and heads towards the hulking behemoth that is Pegasus.

-----

Tom paces on board the Pegasus. Now that it is time to decide, he cannot do it. Cannot make the simple choice that will give him everything he's worked so hard for. He keeps thinking of Nya and how disappointed she would be in him.

Then, as cheers fill the crowd around him as the first news of victory spills through them a small part of his heart hardens. She always was a political weakness, either in campaigning, or in the pursuit of power. A sense of determination fills him and Tom Zarek decides that some things are worth the sacrifice. She will either understand or she won't but this is the time for him.

In his Fleet he will change things.

-----  
Nya staggers from the smoking cockpit of her VIPER and hits the deck. Her legs won't bear her weight and she can't feel them anyway. The world keeps swimming around her and collapsing into pinpoints of light that inevitably fade into the darkness.

"Lieutenant?" Says the voice of one of the deck crew but the words skitter off her mind and fade away. She reels and tries to focus, but the only thing that matters was the explosion.

A ball of fire in the darkness of space. Thousands of copies on board but only one that mattered.

The irony strikes her at that moment. All of the copies of Leoben were Leoben. She hadn't loved a man, not a unique man, she'd loved a machine as much as the VIPERs were stamped out of fabricating plants on Caprica. She hadn't loved anything capable of loving her back.

"Nya?"

This, then, is a voice familiar to her.

"Tom?"

Suddenly her eyes clear and she manages to stand upon her own feet. In a single moment of comprehension she manages to see past all of the blinding pain that has transfixed her.

"Nya?" He tries to pull her into his arms but she resists the movement, not because it is Zarek but because she is still relearning her balance.

"No, wait." She says. "It is gone. The Resurrection Ship is gone."

"I know." He answers. "I'm so sorry."

"No." A small smile touches the corner of her lips. "It had to happen. The Gods willed it."

"How do you know?" But then something occurs to him and he grasps her arms tightly. "There's no embarrassment in grieving."

But there is nothing mad or deranged in her eyes. Nya is suddenly more in control of herself than she's ever been. "If we wait until our lives are free from sorrow or difficulty, then we wait forever. And miss the entire point."

"What do you mean?"

In response, she kisses him.

-----

Leoben hits the ground hard. He looks up, expecting to see dark sky and is blinded by the sun. Then, a cold steel barrel plants itself between his eyes.

"I knew something was wrong with you." D'anna says coldly. "You're under arrest, Leoben Conoy, and if I'm right. You'll be boxed before nightfall."

* * *

**Thanks for the patience. I was momentarily sidetracked with the realization that I didn't like Nya helping Gina but I wasn't sure how to fix it and the story.**

**Chapter 5 is currently in progress and will be up shortly. :) **

**P.s. The quote Nya says is from Dirk Benedict. No boos, I was searching around and came across it. It was definitely a moment of eloquence from him. I had to use it. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Selling Souls – Part I**

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* * *

Selling Souls is in three short parts. That way I can post a little bit faster. Lots of problems/confusion/etc to follow.**

**Just because the Resurrection Ship is gone doesn't mean that Nya or Leoben's lives have gotten any easier.**

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**

**----- **

"Leoben Conoy, you stand accused of grievous crimes against your own people."

Leoben looked up slowly. The room reminded him of the birthing chamber, filled with so much darkness. His arms are numb below the manacles the Centurions slapped on him at D'anna's request. He would have gone willingly. He needed them more than they needed him.

"We're becoming so much like them." He answered quietly to make sure that they were listening. "One word against another. Bickering. Fighting. Distrusting."

The judge looked down at him with veiled curiousity. "You are suspect because of the conditions of your return to us."

"Any contact with humanity is unpredictable. That is why we've waged war against them. They refuse to follow God's plan."

"I see." The judge replied even though Leoben would swear that he didn't. "And the justification for your actions?"

"Yes, the justification." Echoed the two copies seated at his sides. All three peered down at Leoben. "Why would you box a copy of yourself? You know there is no resurrection from that fate."

Leoben wished that he could have carried something more substantial than his faith, but that strengthened him. His words here would send him to a box, or return him to Nya. And the latter was his heart's desire. It was what the Gods had promised him.

"I cannot explain it to you. We lack sufficient common ground."

"What?" The second judge looked flustered at the statement. "Then who does share common ground with you?"

Leoben waited, he couldn't rush it, couldn't betray how important this next step was to him. "I cannot answer to any Cylon who has not seen what we are facing. I submit myself for judgment, but I want to be judged by Sharon Valerii and Caprica Six."

"Highly irregular!"

"Unthinkable!"

"Out of the question!"

All three yelled at him as Leoben stood solidly under the interrogation. When they had finished and consulted among themselves, the head judge looked down at him in distaste. In this Leoben had effectively gone above their heads, and the new found celebrity of the two models was an ace-in-the-hole that he'd exploited for his own gains.

He had no idea about whether they would be sympathetic to him, but he had to try.

"Very well," the judge sighed. "You will be remanded to Centurion custody until Caprica Six and Sharon Valerii have time to hear your case. Get him out of here."

Leoben fought the urge to grin as the two hulking automatons that were Centurions grabbed him fiercely and bore him from the room.

-----

Nya hummed as she walked the decks of the Astral Queen. There was something about her that had changed, lightened in the absence of the guilt she felt over Leoben's death. She no longer wore the medallion of Leucothea around her neck, as though she had finally found a safe port among the stars.

"Ma'am," said Daniel Black as he stepps out of their galley.

"Ma'am?" She snorts with laughter. "Am I in uniform, Danny?"

"No, ma'am. But you're with Zarek. And while he's the master of the Queen that makes you…"

"Just another hand on board her." Nya grinned and gestured behind him. "Unless you drank the last of the coffee. Then, it's war."

"Threats?" Zarek asked as he came up behind them. "And she accuses me of being profiteering. G'morning."

"Mr. Zarek." The formality seems odd coming out of the hardened criminal that is Danny Black but it doesn't faze Nya or Zarek as they enter the galley.

She pours them both a steaming mug and they sit at the small table. She leans against him as they drink in silence for a moment. The months since the attack on the Resurrection Ship have changed both of them. Nya has gone back to flying RAPTORs. The death of Admiral Caine returned sanity to the Fleet and Adama, under Lee's advisement, had transferred her off of Pegasus and back to Galactica.

In a sense it was unnecessary as her reeducation had truly been complete with the destruction of her copy of Leoben. Nothing else had bound her to sympathize with the Cylons except for that.

This time-off aboard the Astral Queen has become common for her and the crew under Zarek. They coordinate their time around her flight schedule and Zarek's Quorum duties. And in it, they have both found something of a new beginning.

"Zarek?" The comm. crackled and Zarek picked up the handset to listen.

"Who is coming?" His voice sounds odd and she picks up on it. "I'll be right there."

"Tom?" Nya touches his arm with her hand, still overheated from the mug, feels like fire on his skin.

"What?" He jerks away from her. "Oh. It's Fisk."

"Fisk." The hatred drips off the single word. "Why?"

He goes for the honest route. The Queen isn't big enough to hide news on. And his crew often feed tidbits of information to Nya as though good favor will trickle down to them because of it.

"The black market."

Nya stiffens slightly at the mention of it. She knows about the black market, sees other pilots smuggling in things on board her flights as though she doesn't have eyes or ears to understand what they're doing. But she hasn't moved into a den of convicts to play the angel, there are some realities in life more pressing than making money.

"If you get involved, Adama will use it as an excuse."

"He doesn't dare." Tom tried to answer flippantly.

"You don't believe me?"

But as she searches his eyes, Nya can tell that he does. "Adama will use it to hang you by. If you want our baby to have a future, you stay away from Fisk and anything to do with the black market."

* * *

**To be continued... **


	6. Chapter 6

**Selling Souls – Part II**

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"_At the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth."_

"_And Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them_."

Leoben watches in silence as Caprica reads from the scroll that had been taken from him on Kobol. Her lips barely moving as she covered the last sentence over again. "…_who overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods_…"

Sharon Valerii watched from the opposite side of the cell with dark and untrusting eyes. "Why did you call for us?"

"Hope." He answered softly. It all came down to this room, just touched with dawn, and whether these women would believe him. "Because I have someone to return to. And the only ones who might believe me are those who also lived among them."

The two Cylon women looked at him. Sharon's face aghast with disbelief. Six fumbled with the scroll as she set it down.

"What makes you think we are sympathetic?"

"You lived with them. Worked with them. Thought that you were one of them." The last is directed at Sharon. "I did too. Over two years on board the _Journey_."

"You told them that you had no feelings for the humans you worked with." Sharon spits out angrily. "I've seen the transcript of your questioning."

"I lied."

-------

Nya does the last zipper on her flight suit and when she looks up, Zarek is at the edge of their cabin looking back at her. His face is lined with seriousness and worry. Not from Fisk, he's told the _Pegasus_' new CO to wait, and came down to see Nya. She won't be back for almost three weeks. An eternity.

"When are you going to tell them?"

"In a few more weeks."

"But the flying…."

Nya shakes her head. "I'm not in combat anymore. There's really no reason to stop flying until I start showing. And that won't be for another few months."

"But…" He takes her by the waist tenderly and places his hands over her stomach as though he could someone feel the new life inside. She smiles at the gesture and leans into his embrace.

"I'm fine."

"I just worry about you."

She pulls away to grab her small ditty bag of gear. "Fisk is waiting on you." Her reminder is said without intonation, but Zarek knows that she's hiding her distaste of the man.

He never told her about Caine's fateful offer on the _Pegasus_, the one that Fisk knows about and is trying to use against him. It was all moot the second the Cylon blew Caine's brains out. He hadn't even given Caine his answer, Nya's return to the landing bay had interrupted his trip to the bridge. But it pulled at him slightly. The Presidency had been so close again, to just slip through his fingers.

These lies weigh between them even though she is unaware. He forces himself to quit worrying at the issue. The baby is coming and they are starting a new life, a different path than he ever thought he'd take. Power shouldn't mean as much to him anymore. But it does. It nags at him, especially since he knows exactly why Fisk is here.

"I love you." She kisses him on the mouth and Tom snaps back into the present.

Her grey eyes are intent on him and he wonders whether the baby will have grey eyes or brown.

"You'll be late." He chides her gently.

She nods and moves to step past him when he draws her back.

------

"You're speaking of treason." Caprica Six says softly. She looks nothing like the vision of Six that haunts Baltar although Leoben does not know this. She wears a demure suit made of pale green fabric that buttons high above her collar bone. Her voice seems familiar but he cannot tell if that is because he is a Cylon or for another reason.

"Treason, yes. If I were betraying something that I believed in." Leoben's voice strengthens and a vitality returns to his cheeks that was not there before.

"You loved her?" Sharon asks from the corner.

He fixes on that comment. Love. The things he has done for love.

"I died for her." He answers. "Knowing that I might not resurrect. Hoping that I would, so that I could find her again. Her name is Nya Reece and she is with the Fleet, out there."

"You could be boxed for that alone."

But the way she says it makes Leoben realize that he has made the right choice. He is not alone anymore amidst the Cylons. These two are beside him.

"I love her."

"You've turned your back on God?" Six asks him.

But there is something there that makes him pause. The love they understand but his conversion to the human religion, the things he saw on Kobol, they will not understand that. His elation dampens as he steps back onto the precipice.

"No." The answer echoes out onto the air. Leoben marvels at his ability to step immediately back into the lies. It seems like they will never end. Breaking the Cylon bonds should have brought him honesty but Leoben doesn't feel it. The lies just heap, one on top of another, in different patterns as he tries to navigate behind enemy lines.

"But I cannot turn my back on her. I…" He pauses to order his thoughts. "Humanity may be flawed, but destruction is so brutal. Why can't we guide them? Lead them to the truth? Why must we annihilate them?"

"That's it." Sharon jumps up from her position. "That's how we can change things."

-----

"Mr. Zarek." Fisk greets him as he enters the small conference room of the _Astral Queen_. The CO is florid faced even though he was sitting at the table bereft of exertion. "We need to talk."

Zarek pulls his politician mask on, the one that doesn't give anything away. "What do you want to talk about?"

Fisk smiles and his eyes glitter menacingly as outside, Nya's RAPTOR pulls away from the _Queen_.

"I'm here to talk about power."

* * *

**To be continued...but you knew that.  
**

**The quote at the beginning is Hesiod's Theogeny, a different translation from the one I used earlier. ** **The action is going to pick up again in the next two chapters on Caprica and in the Fleet.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Selling Souls - Part III **

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------

Leoben wakes in the night with a shudder. The nightmare was full of thunder and the wrathful voice of God threatening to expose him. His sheets are soaked with sweat. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and reaches out for the scroll that should be right there.

"Bad dreams?" Says a soft voice.

"What?" He jumps up as D'anna uncurls from a shadowy corner.

"Bad dreams?" She repeats. "Why would you have bad dreams? A guilty conscience, perhaps? What _did_ you tell Caprica Six and Sharon Valerii that let you go free?"

"Get out of my room." He snarled back and smoothed some of the sweat off of his brow. "I was acquitted."

"Maybe." She gives him a funny look. "Or maybe I'll figure out what's at the bottom of this."

"You won't find anything."

"Hmmm." She says softly. "I could always go to the source."

Leoben shakes his head. Her threats are nothing new. There is nothing she could say that might possibly rattle him.

"Your former love is a pilot in the Fleet now. Maybe I'll have her captured for questioning." Her voice grows soft and slippery with malice. "Or maybe I'll put out a kill order. So that our Raiders blow her out of the sky."

Anger sweeps through him and rage. His fingers twitch with his inability to hide all of the emotion welling up.

It takes all of his self-control to respond without throttling her. "Maybe, D'anna, you should look to yourself. If my judgment was justified on one soul – you might think to worry about your own."

"Threats…" She sputtered.

"Get out of my room."

With a theatrical slam of the door, she disappeared and Leoben sat wearily on his bunk. He could see his reflection in the mirror and he wondered at it for a moment. He looked the same, but he could remember the blood pouring out of his mouth and the bullet holes where he'd been hit. He could remember the horror in her eyes as he lay dying.

"Nya." He said her name. "Don't give up hope. I'm coming."

But his reflection did not answer. It was not a complete copy.

-------

"Ma'am!" Danny Black waved Nya down as she descended from the RAPTOR.

"Danny." She acknowledged and turned back to her co-pilot. "Hazard, I'll just be a minute. Relay our ETA to Cloud 9 docking control."

"A minute?" Hazard gave her a knowing wink. "Pretty fast for an old man."

"This is a business run." She chided back.

She started off as Danny kept pace next to her. "What's up?" She asked him, her long legs stretching out in her flight suit.

"It's Fisk."

"What about him?"

The older man shrugged sadly. "We haven't had a supply run since you left. Zarek turned him down and suddenly all supply flights were routed around us. If it keeps up any longer…we'll be out of food."

"Why hasn't Tom told the Quorum?"

Zarek steps around the corner with a stern look for Danny. "Because we need the black market. I won't burn bridges with Phalen just to alleviate a little bit of pressure. Fisk will get what's coming to him."

He leaned in to kiss her but Nya is tense. A business run should still mean business.

"Your RAPTOR awaits, Representative Zarek."

"So formal," he teases. "We'll be fine on half rats for another two weeks. Contrary to what Danny may believe. And everything should be clarified by then."

"Clarified…" The word fades as Nya blanches suddenly and wavers.

The world spins away from her…

Around and around and around….

And the down….

------

"She's waking up." The voice is rough yet feminine, for a moment it is completely unfamiliar. Nya struggles to open her eyes but cannot focus, until at last Hazard's face straightens in her vision.

"Does she have episodes like this often?"

"Never."

Nya realizes that Tom is cradling her with a worried look on his face. She tries to get a grip on him so that she can rise when nausea almost overwhelms her again. The dream is still so vivid in her mind that she is waiting for him to come around the corner to join them. But he is gone. Dead. Anything else is an illusion, one she gave up weeks ago.

"I can call another RAPTOR."

"No." Then more forcefully. "No. I'm fine. I'm just a little bit tired."

"_Nya_." He says her name with more emphasis than he needs. "You should see Doc Cottle."

"No." She says again. "I'm okay. Lords of Kobol, how long was I out? Are we off schedule?"

"We're okay." But Hazard doesn't seem completely convinced. "I should really call this in."

Nya struggles to her feet and takes a deep breath to regain her equilibrium. "I'm okay. Really. I'll report to the doctor as soon as we get back to Galatica. I promise. Is the preflight completed?"

"No, not yet."

"Well lets get going before we are behind schedule."

She starts to follow Hazard back onto the RAPTOR when Tom stops her. He searches her eyes for an answer but doesn't seem to get what he's looking for in her eyes.

"The baby. You need to slow down."

"I'm okay." She tells him. "The baby is okay too. I just haven't been sleeping well." A smile flickers across her face. "I don't sleep well when I'm away from you."

"Someday, I'm going to marry you to stop all that."

"Someday you will." She gives him a sunnier smile, one to prove that everything is alright. "Come on, Representative. You have a very important Quorum meeting to attend."

"Of course."

Another thought crosses her mind and she turns back to him. "Tom, you're doing the right thing by keeping away from Fisk. He's just like _her_. Admiral Caine. There's nothing but poison there."

"I'll stay away from the black market as long as Fisk is involved." The promise is so easily made. "I'd rather sleep with you than the enemy." A pause. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine."

-------

Doc Cottle gave her a strange look as he drew the curtain closed around them. He wasn't smoking but had a cigarette tucked behind his ear as she waited for him in the thin paper examination gown.

"So what's this about? You doing drugs?" He peered into her eyes. "Why did you faint?"

"I'm pregnant."

It didn't faze him as much as she thought it would. He nodded, took her pulse and listened to her heartbeat and then to the tiny one in her stomach.

"So you're probably exhausted. Especially with the rations being as tight as they are." He made a few notations and looked her over again. "You're not married, but can I assume that you know who the father is?"

"Yes."

"And he knows?"

"Yes."

"Good." Cottle made a few more notes and checked the whites of her eyes carefully. "Fatherhood makes men into better human beings. You're most likely low on iron which can cause exhaustion, lethargy and fainting spells. I'm going to put you on a few supplements and give you a stern warning, young woman. You should have told me the minute you found out."

"Yes, sir." She answers meekly.

"Okay. I'm going to order an ultrasound so that we can get an idea of your due date and then we'll need to meet with Captain Adama about your flight schedule."

"Doc," She protested. "I can still fly."

"Of course you can. But the long eighteen hour duty shifts will have to stop fairly soon."

"Doc Cottle!" Shouts a nurse from the other side of the room. "Doc Cottle!"

"Excuse me." He gets up to leave and as he brushes the curtain aside Gaius Baltar sees in. "Baltar, could you fill this for the Lieutenant?"

Baltar sneered faintly. "Of course, Doctor. I came in merely to work in your little pharmacy."

"Not now." Cottle snapped. "Just do me the favor."

Gaius looked down at the prescription and his eyes widened. Six peered over his shoulder at the piece of paper and her voice rattled in the air.

"_She cannot have this baby, Gaius."_

"Why not?" He glanced back at Nya whose attention was elsewhere. "What do we care about the Lieutenant? Leoben is dead. Really dead. It can't be his. What does it matter?"

Six grabbed his shoulder with painful fingers. "_You will need Zarek. He has influence in the fleet. Influence against Roslin. If she has a child…he will not help us."_

"How do you know it's his?"

"_It is."_

Baltar walked numbly to the pharmacy cabinet and shifted himself so that he stood completely in front of it. He read the prescription and picked up the correct bottle, noting the tiny blue pills inside. Then, almost unconsciously, he located the next bottle he wanted. These were identical.

He shook three of those into his palm and still filled the other bottle with the correct medication. The poison sat in his palm with surprising heaviness as he gathered himself and headed toward Nya.

She looked up in surprise as he entered the room.

"Mr. Baltar?"

"The Doctor was called away on some kind of emergency." Baltar was surprised that his voice didn't tremble in the slightest. "These are the pills he wanted you to take." He extended his hand where three pills already sat. "You should take these now. Instructions for the rest are on the label."

Nya accepted the pills and the small glass of water that Baltar offered. He and Six watched as she tossed them into her mouth and swallowed them down.

He gave her a weak smile. "I just wanted to say congratulations, on your happy news."

A flicker of wariness crossed her eyes. "Thank you."

"No problem." He answered. "No problem at all."


	8. Chapter 8

**Sleeping With the Enemy – Part I**

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She woke with a start, disoriented, confused. And she cried out as pain tore through her abdomen. Harsh, biting pain like she'd never felt before. This was not the searing agony of a gunshot but something deeper, something far more primal.

Tom murmured a question from the bed but Nya couldn't answer. She curled on the floor as though the ability to hold her body tightly around itself would keep everything inside.

She whimpered. And the act of it made her angry. She was so tired of being….

Blood gushed from between her legs, splattered between her fingers and onto the floor. The sound woke Tom and he lunged out of bed as Nya screamed.

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_"In the days before time, before there were men or Cylons, the Gods were created. They laughed, and fought, and bred children who were both their delight and their bane. These children fulfilled the niches of the heavens and created the wide expanse of emotions that filled the world. And for every thing of light and beauty, there must be something of darkness. For every song of happiness, one of tragedy."_

_"Nine muses were given life for they would be the guiding light of humanity. But there is another story, about the nine who were given life to keep the balance. You cannot have beauty and joy without tragedy and suffering. These nine are rarely spoken of but they have names. Violence, rage, suffering, hatred, denial, waste, and…."_

_"And?" The copies of Sharon gazed up at him with rapt attention. "What are the others?"_

_Leoben frowned. A strange feeling ricocheted through his stomach, as though he were being shot again. "Nya?" The word burst out of him._

_"What are you talking about?"_

_He grunted as the pain increased and grew sharper. There was no explanation, no reason for the certainty that he felt. This was Nya's pain. And he was lightyears away, bound to instruct Cylons in human beliefs so that the takeover would run smoothly. The thought struck him that he had to go to her. She needed him and he was too far away._

_"I…I…" He tried to explain. "I don't feel well."_

_"Nya was your woman?" One of the copies asked softly. "Do you think she's still alive?"_

_It took him a moment to compose himself. The pain, whatever it had been, faded. For a moment its absence was so shocking that he couldn't remember the way it had felt. _

_"I'm okay, now." He turned his attention back to the scrolls. His voice was softer than it had been before, but there were still enough enemies in the Cylon Fleet that he needed to watch himself. Too many slips could still betray him. "The last three were the bane of humanity for centuries, but just as important as the other nine. When you want to understand humanity you must know that for everything good there is something bad. It is not necessarily evil, but the way they were made to be."  
_

_"The last three were sin, betrayal…and loss."_

_---------_

_

* * *

---------- _

"What the frak is going on down here?" Tigh shouldered two medics aside to get further into the room. "I get an emergency flight on the board that nobody told me about. And now no one can explain why it was allowed on board. What the frak is going on? Where is Cottle?"

"In surgery."

Tigh whirled on Zarek as the dark-haired man approached. He still wore the blood-stained pants he'd rolled out of bed in. The stains were still fresh and heart-wrenchingly red. Tigh's eyes widened.

"What did you do?"

A wave of sorrow, something Tigh had never seen on the Sagittaron, passed heavily over Zarek's face. It aged him and made him more human at the same time.

"It's Nya."

"Archer? Lt. Reece?" Tigh fought against the confusion. "You attacked her?"

"No." The word was said softly.

Behind them, in the surgery suite, a hastily gowned Cottle worked frantically. Nurses and medics clustered around him, their forms obscured what was actually going on. As they watched someone dropped a medical instrument and Cottle began to curse loudly as the crew scrambled to find a clean and sterile replacement.

There was nothing either man could do. They watched in silent sorrow as blood splashed on the floor around Cottle's feet and the monitors spat out screeching warnings. Zarek had run with Nya in his arms. Run so fast and hard that he thought his own heart might stop. He'd given her to Cottle to save, but it was starting to look like he'd been too slow. That he would lose them both, and the thought deadened his heart. The grief swamped it and drowned everything under its cloying darkness.

"She's losing the baby."

* * *

**Sorry about the delays. This story will be finished this weekend, so stay tuned for updates. I got sucked into another fanfic for a bit.**

**Thanks for everyone reading. I promise that the ending will be a shocker. **


	9. Chapter 9

**Sleeping With the Enemy – Part II**

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**

"Sweet child." The heavy hand descended onto Nya's cheek. The pale flesh of her skin contrasted with his heavily wrinkled fingers. Her eyes fluttered and opened. Tears welled up immediately as she saw him.

"Brother Cavil…" She whispered. "What has happened?"

"I came as soon as I could, Nya." He spoke solemnly and tears poured forth from her eyes.

"It was my fault."

"No," his tone was meant to soothe, but brought little comfort. So he sat next to her and took her hands in his. "There is a great deal of stress in our lives. That is a lot to swim upstream against. The little one never had a chance."

"I did not sacrifice to her!" Nya shrieked suddenly. "But the gods be damned, it was not yet time!"

"Sacrifice to whom?" Cavil asked in confusion.

Her answer was a bitter hiss. "The sharp sorrow of pain descends on a woman in labour, the bitterness that hard Eileithyiai brings on. Hera's daughter, who hold power over the unborn. But it was not yet time."

"The gods did not do this to you." He leaned forward to embrace her. "Man did."

And the tears dried up in her eyes. Nya suddenly saw clarity in the events of the past few days. The pills in Baltar's hand. The way he gave them to her cautiously. And she, being stupid enough to trust the man who'd tried to kill her and Leoben.

"He's the one who killed my baby." She says softly.

"Who?"

But she doesn't answer.

--------

* * *

--------- 

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Nya." Tom's voice is soft and cajoling, as though he's speaking to a child instead of the woman in front of him. "This has been hard on both of us."

"Why won't you believe me?" She asks again, more forcefully this time. Her figure looks gaunt and frail, three weeks of bed rest have only served to emphasize her trauma not heal it.

"Because…" He takes a moment to pick and choose his words carefully. A small nagging part of himself wants to blame Nya for losing the baby. But the rest of him, the rational part, reminds him that it was not her fault. She almost died on the operating table before Cottle managed to pump enough blood back into her. And that she wanted the baby as much as he did, she would not have jeopardized it on purpose. But that small part of him whispers its angry accusations despite his best efforts to ignore it.

"Because it's crazy. Baltar is an ass. Lords of Kobol, I doubt he knows where he is most of the time. He wouldn't…" He can't even bear to say it outloud. "Nya, I know you're upset."

She bites back with words guaranteed to drive a split between them. "Leoben would have believed me."

"Leoben's not here! I am!"

Her hair swings over her face and for a moment it looks like she will weep. But then, some of the steel cuts back through her spine and she looks up at him slowly. There are tears in her eyes but angry ones, born of distrust and loneliness.

"He killed our baby."

"No, Nya. Stress did. This war did. The Cylons did. You can't blame others for what has happened. We have to learn to accept it and move on."

"Move on." She whispers. "Yes, Tom, move on. Maybe this will get you the sympathy votes you've been needing. But we should move on." She reaches the door in two quick steps.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to Galactica."

"You can't leave. Not until you're healed."

"Frak off."

"Nya!"

But she slips out of the door too quickly for him to follow. Tom Zarek just stares at the closed door for a long time. He didn't have the heart to tell her that even the sympathy votes for the miscarriage wouldn't put him ahead in the Fleet. They'd already run the numbers. And that realization chills a part of him. He should be mourning the loss of a life, of his child. The first and only one he'd ever created. Instead he had let Danny Black run the numbers on whether it would put him ahead.

The choices ran around and around in his mind. He'd let his fascination, his attention, his….he wasn't ready to say it yet…he hadn't said it to her, even when she'd been dying. In the end, it was that thought that hardened his heart again. He'd had a goal and even lost his best friend to it. It was time to return to what was important and forget that Nya Reece had ever darkened his doorstep.

--------

* * *

--------- 

One month later….

"_She knows._" Six hissed to Gaius as they caught a glimpse of Nya in Galactica. She was dressed in pilot silver as she walked next to her recon officer, Hazard. The two women were deep in conversation and didn't notice his, or Six's, attention.

"It doesn't matter. Cottle doesn't, and who would believe the ramblings of that trollop over me?" He struts his chest out cockily. "She's nothing."

"_Over confidence? Be careful of where that takes you._"

"Hush." He snaps at her. "He's not here to see her. I checked the flight logs. She's on patrol in ten minutes. In fact, no one has seen them together since she lost the baby. It's over."

"_And what do you think Zarek wants to talk about?"_

"I haven't the slightest idea." A smile curves his lips as her hands run down the front of his chest and press hard into his trousers. "That's enough or the esteemed Representative will wonder what I've been doing."

With a moue of disappointment she disengaged her hands and then disappeared as Gaius poured himself a drink. When the knock came he answered it and then lounged back across his sofa.

"So what brings you here, Mr. Zarek?" Gaius didn't bother with pleasantries, neither man needed to waste his time on frivilous musing.

"Many things, some great and some smaller than deserve our time. Did you take the oath, Doctor?"

"The oath?" The question sets Gaius back a little bit. "What oath?"

"Opichus' oath."

"Oh that." Gaius waves at the air with one hand, barely caring about the question. "Of course I did. We all did, everyone at university, you don't get the appellation Doctor without it."

The answer seems to set Zarek at ease although he is still burdened by something. "You asked what brought me here. The Presidency brought me here."

"Ah," Gaius was expecting this sooner or later. Six had promised him that he could lead and she was always right, sooner or later. "The Presidency. You want my support for your bid."

"No." Zarek spat the word out. "Not exactly." He turned to the mirror in the room and spoke to it as though he was looking for someone else. "Am I capable of leading this Fleet? Absolutely. And for a time I almost had a chance. Until Laura Roslin ascended from politician to prophet. The truth is…I can't win. But you could."

"You flatter me, Mr. Zarek, really. But I'm not sure I'm cut out for politics as I find the Vice Presidency and everything to do with it rather tedious." Gaius drank deeply from the glass and didn't even flinch at the biting liquor.

"I would imagine that carrying water for Roslin would get old after a time. But it's the office that makes you the perfect candidate, Doctor. You're presold.

"Really? To whom?"

"You'd be surprised how many people crave the assurances of cold science as opposed to the superstitious ravings of the Geminese. Or the empty prayers of the Sagittarons. As a scientist you offer hope. Real hope, not the vagaries of the gods."

"And you, Tom. You're going to step aside?"

The answer took a moment to come as it had to wait for Zarek to swallow his pride and push the memory of Nya away. "I'm just happy to back a man of true conviction." He pauses. "A man who remembers his friends."

"And how does Lieutenant Reece feel about all this?"

"The Lieutenant and I have parted ways."

As Zarek walked out of the room, Six's mocking laughter followed him, evident only to Baltar who watched silently and slippery. More serpent than man.

* * *

**Preview of Ch. 10, 11, and 12. Will Nya forgive him when Zarek learns the truth about Baltar? What really happened to Leoben on Kobol? And will any of them survive the first day of the new invasion?**

**Nya quoted Homer about the goddess of childbirth. I used the actual dialog from "The Captains Hand" for Balter and Zarek's talk.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Tighten the Knots – Part I**

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**

"We men are in prison all that time which we choose to call life.  
For this soul of ours, being bound and fettered in a perishable body,  
has to endure many things,  
and be the slave of all the affections which visit humanity."

Flavius Philostratus, _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_

_

* * *

_

Leoben stood at the portal. All around him Cylons worked to run the gigantic Battlestar with methodical efficiency. The last few months had gone smoother than he'd ever imagined. The formidable Caprica Six and Sharon Valerii spearheaded the movement away from destruction towards something different, something more forgiving for the errant children they chased. Errant children, as though Nya was some type of innocent who deserved to be bound and regulated by Cylon law.

His lips curled angrily and he fought to control them. Nothing could get in his way now. They were too close. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the bulkhead. He'd lost something on Kobol and it burned at him to admit that he now had some human failings that hadn't been there before. Perfect recall was a Cylon trait. And it meant that Nya's face grew blurry in the tenuous grip of his mind.

Dark hair, he remembered that much, and grey eyes that were simultaneously dark and light. Light when she sat at the helm of the Journey, one hand poised on the controls while the other cupped the sigil of Leucothea. Nya was not gorgeous, but a subtler, more handsome quality existed in her face. A face that would age in slow increments until it was impossible to tell her age. A face he could grow old with.

But it was the details that avoided him. Even in the dark of night when he dreamt, and thought that she was with him, everything remained in shadows.

Purity of heart, he reminded himself, that was my price. I will see her again soon enough.

"What are you doing?" Caprica Six touched his shoulder and he jumped. The black circles under his eyes did little to alleviate her concern.

"We'll find them." She told him softly. "It's just a matter of time."

"Time." Several Centurions swerved to miss them, almost subservient in their demeanor. "They are human. How much time can we waste?"

"Lifetimes is what I tell the others…" but she didn't seem to take the words seriously. "We don't have that long. Not for the ones we're going back for. Do you miss her?"

"Everyday." The honesty surprised him, but Caprica Six was on his side, not like the lethal and sabotaging D'anna.

"She'll wait for you."

"I know." Leoben's eyes moved back to the portal to space and looked out across the expanse of stars. "I promised her I would come back."

------------------

Thirteen months later….

"O venerable Goddess, hear my prayer and make benevolent my life thy care. Send, blessed queen, to ships a prosperous breeze and waft them safely over stormy seas."

"Any more superstitious and they'll lock you up."

"Superstition is not religion, and last I looked, the Fleet doesn't persecute that." Nya grinned at Hazard as the RAPTOR cycled up. They both had standard flight gear minus the helmets. Regular transportation runs didn't qualify as combat ops and everything was more relaxed.

"I still like the modern version better." Hazard popped the DRAIDS screen with her fist, the last set of repairs hadn't taken as well as they would have thought.

The two women spoke in chorus. "O Goddess of the stars and night, hear my prayer through the darkness. Send, blessed queen, our ships the stars to guide them by and see them safely through the darkness - into the light."

"But…" Nya starts.

"…old prayers work best." Hazard finishes for her. "Man, I can't believe we're almost done with these runs. Galactica is a frakking ghost ship."

Nya doesn't answer at first. She disagreed with their move to New Caprica from the moment Baltar made it his election platform. It hurt almost as much to see Tom Zarek as the snake's right hand man.

Things went to hell just as soon as he took power. But neither Nya nor Hazard had the time to care. Baltar's first order had been to require all essential personnel to leave for New Caprica and moving nearly 50,000 people and equipment took every RAPTOR and cargo vessel pilot they had. Luckily, they'd both wanted to stay with Galactica instead of immigrating to the planet's surface.

"Well?" Muttered a grumpy voice. "You two gonna fly at some point this morning?"

"Roger that, Colonel Tigh." Nya gave him a saucy wink as his wife glared at her. "Just waiting for our turn in the queue."

"Looking forward to being planet-bound, sir?" Hazard chirped as they got the confirmation to take off.

"Of course we are." Ellen answered for him. "It's better than being stuck on Galactica while it falls apart around us."

"Of course, ma'am." Hazard answered softly. "Since it's the only thing protecting us if the Cylons find us."

"But they won't, Lieutenant." Mrs. Tigh snapped back. "This is our new home."

Hazard and Nya shared a quick glance. The RAPTOR exited the flight deck into space and turned toward the planet below them. Although neither pilot, nor Tigh, said it, the consensus was that everyone on the planet was a sitting duck. They just had to hope that their luck held.

"Thirty minutes to planet, sir. Just sit back and enjoy the ride."

Four of Tyrol's men were waiting for the RAPTOR to touch down. The weekly allotment of restricted goods were onboard, for all the good it did anyone. Tyrol's men, as well as everyone else on New Caprica, knew they went to the President and didn't come back out again.

"Need any help?" Nya asked as she came under the wing of the RAPTOR toward them. "We've got four hours of leave before we're due back."

"That's okay, Lieutenant." The lead said, protective of their union rights. "We've got them."

She nodded and gave Tigh a jaunty salute as he descended. "Colonel Tigh."

"Archer."

"It was a pleasure serving under you, sir."

One eyebrow raised up in disbelief at her words. "Thank you."

"Saul…" Ellen whined from his shoulder. She was exquisitely made up, as usual, and Nya wondered again where she got the new clothes from. Everyone else had to make do with old uniform rations and scraps that could be begged or paid for from the legitimate market. Items from the black market had disappeared from the Fleet still in orbit, as everything was on the ground.

"Duty calls." He said whimsically as he turned to follow his wife.

"Doesn't it." The words were said to herself. Four hours seemed like an eternity. Already there was a division between those on the ground and those in the sky. As though the civilians had forgotten who'd fought to get them this far.

"Nya."

She jumped and smacked her head on the RAPTOR. "Ohh." Immediately, pain and swelling shot up in the flesh and she cupped her hands around the ache as though that would help.

Hands grabbed her waist and helped ease her to the ground. Through the flashes of pain she managed to get one eye open. She hadn't been wrong. Tom looked back at her.

It hurt to admit that he looked good, although that might have been the pain in her forehead. The lump was definitely getting bigger as she pressed fingers into it gently.

"So you're trying to kill me now?" It was supposed to come out as a joke, but there was too much bitterness in it.

"You've been avoiding me for a year. I guess I was going to have to resort to violence sooner or later."

She pulled away from his hand. "Don't, Tom."

"I'm sorry." The sincerity struck her physically. Mountains of distrust had grown between them and it was shocking that two words could change all of that.

"You…." The words didn't want to come. "You know what he did. And you helped him. Against me…of all the things to hurt me, why choose that one?"

"I didn't believe you. Cottle gave me all the official explanations. That you were suffering from post-traumatic shock and shifting the blame to everyone else was a coping mechanism."

"You believed that pile of frak?"

"Yeah, I did." The self deprecation isn't something that she's ever heard from him before. "You wanna smash my head into the RAPTOR for awhile?"

He makes her laugh.

"I've missed you, Nya. I know I can't make up for the past. Or for the baby. But I'd like to try."

Above them the blue sky of New Caprica is full of clouds and the wind that bites at them is frigid. But at that moment it reminds both of them of the balmy Sagittaron winds. Her eyes soften and the pain subsides.

"You've missed me?" The question is said almost teasingly.

"Only in the sense that…" He chuckles as she pushes him away in mock anger. "Yes, Nya. By all the Gods, yes."

She doesn't close her eyes as he kisses her, not at first. Instead she lets them travel over the new lines in his face. What he doesn't know is that Zeke cast a foretelling for her, three weeks earlier. Without it, she would never have taken Zarek back. But the bones and the sacrifice spoke of a great change. A reversal in the way of things. A time to rejoin old loves and forgive them their sins.

"Lucky bastard." She whispered to him and then didn't say anything else at all as she kissed him again.

----------------

"Prepare for final jump."

The words sent a chill down Leoben's back. This was it. They were within reach. She was waiting for him.

"We're ready." Caprica Six turned to look at her co-conspirators and gave them a nervous smile. "This is it. Fleet, jump."

* * *

**This is it. Will Nya welcome Leoben home? Will he be exposed for what he is? **

**Are you ready for the occupation?**


	11. Chapter 11

**Tighter and Tighter – Part II**

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**

"_So you've come_."

The voice, voices, came from all around Leoben. He'd just been inside the decrepit tomb on Kobol. The body of a Cylon cooling on the floor beneath his boots and a box in his coat that held his copy's soul. He was a murderer and a traitor, and yet here he stood. Granted access to humanity's first temple and to the gods.

"I have," he answered softly.

"_Because he wants something_." The voice echoed around him as he peered into the darkness. Formless, as of yet, but something was hinted at in the deep shadows all around him.

"_They always want something_." A higher contralto whispered.

"_Take and never give…but this one is different_."

"_Different_…" The others echoed and then merged together into one melodious chord. "_Because he's a machine_."

"What are you?" Leoben demanded. He whirled to see the source of the amorphous voices. Women, mocking him with their laughter, just beyond the edge of sight.

"_Machines…ghosts……gods… What do you believe_?"

"You are the Fates."

High tittering laughter. Like birds of prey swooping, like the pigeons in the marketplace taking flight instantaneously, like the shrill cry of the hunted in the moment before it is caught. It swarmed around him, plucking at his hair and eyes as though the laughter had fingers.

"_Perhaps. What do you want_?"

He took a deep breath. There were so many things he wanted and yet they all started and ended with her.

"I want."

"_I want_…." The Fates whispered to mock. "_What do you want, little machine_?"

"To be human." He spat it at them quickly so that he could not take it back. "I love a human. I want to be with her, and to do that, I need to _be_ human."

"_Ahhhh_….." A breath. And then another.

"_Do you love her_?"

"Yes."

"_Does she love you_?"

"Yes."

"_And will she be faithful as you cross the stars to her_?"

"Yes." Leoben didn't have to think. Nya loved him. She had brought him back from the darkness once, she would wait for him to return from the darkness again.

The space around him stilled and grew silent. The air grew heavy with portents unspoken and for the first time he doubted himself. Even if he survived, there was the chance that God would discover his treachery, that he would be boxed.

"_You must have faith_." The Fates whispered and the words echoed off invisible walls as though they were still surrounded in Athena's tomb. "_You cannot falter. No matter what happens_."

"How do I become human?" He demanded. "It is not enough to find her again. I must be human."

They did not answer and he was stricken with the sudden fear that he had angered them. He cast about but he was alone by all of his senses.

He screamed suddenly as pain lanced into his head. A sudden, ravaging pain. It bit through the soft tissue and ignited neurons he'd never known could feel pain. Everything flashed like white fire and he dropped to his knees. He struggled to hold onto the image of Nya, as though she was his pillar, even as the world burned around him.

Then, slowly, and with little fanfare, it faded.

He remained on his knees.

"_Go to her_." A solitary deep and feminine voice told him. "_But you must remain pure of heart or it will matter for naught_."

"What did you do to me?" He gasped, still shuddering from the aftereffects of the pain.

"_You're human now_." They told him. "_When you die this time, you will not resurrect, you will not be born again. One life is all that is allotted to mankind. Now you are as one of them_."

----------------------

Nya stripped the silver uniform off her shoulders. Her gaze never looked up as she drew the fabric down and then pulled it from her waist. Two steps and her legs came free. The sounds of the city swirled around them as she stood before him in a black tank top and panties. Neither of which hid the terrible scar that ran for four inches across her lower belly. A vicious reminder of their loss.

"Nya," he said.

But she went on like she hadn't heard him. The tank top was pulled up over her head and tossed with the other clothes on the floor.

He said her name again but it was more groan than word.

She discarded the last piece of clothing and crossed the three feet to where he was waiting. He flinched as her hands ran up his face and into his graying hair. They pressed into his skin as she drew his face toward her and kissed him.

-------------------

The stars above New Caprica blinked slightly. As though the gods turned their faces away from what was coming. In that space, between one flicker and the next, the Cylon Fleet exploded into being.

Glistening ranks of Cylon fighters in formation ahead of their behemoth masters, the Basestars. Each one turned in unison toward the planet and dove. They sliced through the upper atmosphere and turned, like stars, into red embers headed straight down.

---------------------

She ripped the jacket off of him.

There wasn't any more time to wait and Nya was clumsy in her desperation. They tripped and regained equilibrium, as she tugged clothes off of him and they made their slow methodical way towards his bed.

He made her stop as his hands refused to pull away from her. They were too busy exploring a space he hadn't seen in over a year. The soft skin underneath her breasts. The way her back curved down into the flesh of her buttocks. Everything was as new as if they were lovers starting over at the very beginning.

Impatient, she pushed him backwards onto the mattress. In protest, he dragged her down for another kiss.

----------------------

In space, another decision was made. In a heartbeat, Adama recognized the overwhelming force arrayed against them. There was no military solution. No way to defend against the Cylon Fleet he could see. No way to save those on the planet.

With a heart made heavy. One close to giving up. He gave the order.

Galactica, Pegasus, and the remaining orbiting Fleet – jumped.

-----------------------

"I'm here." Leoben whispered to himself. "We've done it."

The Fates mocked him in his memories, in his dreams. They spoke of promises and faith. They told him about love and time and how all things fade, even the brightest stars. They whispered to him, even now, with the end of everything in sight.

"Nya," he said. One hand pressed against the portal as he watched the Fleet disappear even as the Cylon force moved out to occupy the area. "I'm here. I promised I would come back for you."

The planet shone below him. It turned in orbit as it always had, but he knew with utter certainty that she was down there. He could almost feel her presence.

"She will be waiting for him at the end." It was a promise. The one that has brought him all this way. Through life and death, and to the very edge of his humanity. All for her.

-----------------------

The urgency in them hadn't faded but crescendo'ed and then rose higher. The frantic movement of their bodies, their utter abandonment, hid the sounds from outside. The stark silence and then a whining of ships not made by human hands.

"Nya!" He burst out as they topped the wave.

She didn't respond, just rocked with the emotion that some strange line had been breached. A line in the cosmos, stretched, and then snapped.


	12. Chapter 12

**The Knot Breaks – Part III**

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**

It was the scream that undid them.

Nya rolled from the bed and drew on Zarek's discarded pants and her tank top. She cinched his belt tightly around her waist as she slung her pistol holster and ran for the tent door.

Her eyes rolled upward: Cylon fighters.

They streaked across the sky in silver formations. Edge aligned with edge. Mechanical precision on display.

"Lords of Kobol." She whispered.

The cold ground bit at her feet as she jogged from their tent. The main thoroughfare was just a few lanes away and she could hear the noise. Murmurs mostly, babies crying, but underneath it all was the sound of Centurion sentinels marching.

She rounded the last corner and stopped. The Centurions moved down the street as the settlers shifted and moved out of their way. The shock was palpable on the faces around her. A thick and disheartening dread as the impossible happened.

Nya searched the Centurions and as she did her eyes passed across a face that she knew.

Her heart stopped.

Simply ceased to beat.

She was not horrified, nor shocked when all things came clear. Leoben stood just behind the Centurions with a two copies of Sharon Valerii and one of Aaron Doral. He was looking across the crowd of humans with a bored look as the four spoke among themselves. The overseers watching the occupation take effect.

Cold hard metal under her fingertips reminded her of what she carried. Nya looked down at the gun in her holster and then back up at the Centurions. They were almost abreast of her position and would soon pass her. Her toes flexed on the soil as she tensed imperceptibly.

A single Centurion turned to look at her and evidently dismissed her as it kept moving. Disheveled hair, half-dressed, and barefoot – hardly a threat.

The growing crowds of humans covered her movement as she headed towards the four. The gun slipped easily out of the holster even though she could not have answered why she drew it.

A woman to Nya's left groaned. "They've found us."

Nya didn't answer. Her eyes remained on target for the man ahead of her. A chill raced across her forearms as she bent slightly and drew.

She stepped out on the street alone. The holster was dropped and forgotten amidst the crowd. The murmurs increased as those around her whispered in fear and misunderstanding.

"Leoben Conoy."

The Cylon looked up and confusion filled its eyes. "Who are you?" He asked. His lips curled in disdain as he stared at her.

The gunshot clipped the morning air. Gave it the first taste of violence. The copy staggered back a single step and fell. The bullet hole in his forehead oozed blood but he was already dead.

Screams surrounded Nya. The gun dropped and she stared at the body in the dust. Sorrow swamped her heart and something more indefinable, a satisfaction at the revenge she was owed. Owed for the pain and the heartache, for the things she had seen and witnessed, for feeling that her soul had died again and again in the stars. It would have been easier for him to have opened the airlock so long ago.

_He shakes his head as though there's a tick. "I'm supposed to do this. Open the airlocks at the appointed time. I have to do this. I'm supposed to do this."_

"_Why?"_

"_I don't know." His hand drops away and his head drops as he tries to find the reason within himself. "I don't know."_

"_Everything in this world is a choice." The words echo as the cold, dark part of space seems to suck the heat from the room. A chill descends over both of them as his hand steals back toward the keypad. She won't be able to outfight him, weekly games of Pyramid have taught her the futility of that, his frame hides tremendous strength. _

"_It's a choice, Leo. Your choice. There is nothing out there except for death. Come back to us. Come back to me."_

But now that he has truly come back, she cannot look upon him. Cannot know whether she killed her Leoben or just another copy. She does not want to know.

Tears start to trickle from her cheeks as her weapon falls. She doesn't notice as it strikes her foot and draws blood. Everything grows suddenly quiet inside her mind.

The stomping run of Centurions doesn't intrude. Neither is she ready for the striking blow from behind. It throws her twenty feet, she cannot stay upright, and skids along the dirt. Then, they are right on top of her, Cylon weapons pointed straight at her head as she kneels there.

"Nya!" She hears Tom yell distantly.

Her eyes blinded by dust and the salty tears of betrayal do not look up. "Guardians of the gates of death, Keres, hear my prayers." She whispers. Guns lock on with whines all around her as the end nears. "I have chosen your path into the darkness. Receive me in good faith and judge my actions with open eyes. I do not fear you. I do not fear the darkness. I am ready."

"Eliminate the threat." The Centurion leader orders.

She closes her eyes as the last tears slip between them and fall to the dusty ground. New Caprica sucks them up in callous disregard. A breath and then another. They are suddenly so vibrant as though her body knows to suck up the last bits of life.

"Hail Gods and Goddesses." She breathes. "Hail, those in those heavens, as life comes undone. I am ready."

She turns toward the Cylon weapons, but doesn't hear the commotion behind her. Shouts and desperation, as the crowd parts around something and then draws together again to watch. No one has the presence of mind to try and stop the Centurions, except for the man who breaks free of the last ranks of humans.

Who looks with horrified eyes upon the scene in front of him. A copy slain, and the woman he has fought so hard for at the shooting end of a firing squad.

Leoben stared at Nya and she saw _him_ and realized the truth.

"Nya…" He whispered.

Tom Zarek jumped in the crowd as though struck.

"Nya, I…" Leoben turned to the Centurions. "Stand down."

"We cannot do that. She murdered one of your model."

"Then arrest her." Leoben ordered shortly. "This occupation was to be conducted without bloodshed."

The Centurions drug her up from the ground. She dangled between the larger machines without a struggle. Blood dripped from one knee and splattered across the ground. New Caprica accepted that as well. Blood was already spilled.

Leoben turned to Nya and realized then, that across the miles, across the thousands of lightyears, she had never truly believed he would come back.

"But I promised you," he told her softly. "I promised you."

* * *

**This has taken me a lot more stops and starts then I had anticipated. Thanks to everyone who read.**

**Part III will begin this October. Let the occupation commence. **


End file.
